The Market Cross in the center (um, centre) of Devizes (photo credit www.devizes.org.uk)
I recently read a blog post by a British woman, writing about her dread at having to participate in the Mothers’ Race for Sports Day at her daughters’ school. This sent me flashing back to 1970 when I attended the comprehensive school in Devizes, Wiltshire, England, a small west country market town where my father was an exchange teacher.
In 1970, I was a somewhat gawky 15 year old with the full catastrophe of orthopedic shoes, bookwormly glasses AND being an American. Back then, life wasn’t as global as it is today. In small town, rural England, “American” was definitely big time “other”.
At my Philadelphia all girls public high school, there was a yearly spirited athletic competition pitting the juniors against the seniors, but only the jocks competed. The rest of us cheered them on, or in my case, played the oboe in the pep band.
It would be a massive understatement to say I was less than thrilled to learn that the Devizes Comprehensive School had a Sports Day during which everyone had to participate in at least one athletic contest. Looking over my choices with dismay, I realized that swimming was my only option because I could compete as an individual. For sure, no one would want me on their field hockey team. I wouldn’t even want me on my field hockey team.
Saint John’s Church in Devizes, the earliest portion of which dates from the early 12th century. “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Philadelphia any more.” (Photo: www.devizesheritage.org.uk)
My mother and I took a 20 mile bus ride to the town of Bath in the next county so I could be outfitted with a bathing suit, or as the British call it, a “swimming costume”.
The suit I ended up with most definitely looked like a costume. Known for its geothermal hot springs, Bath acquired its name because it was originally a spa town, even for the Romans, not because it was a mecca for bathing suit shopping.
My new bathing suit had some kind of rigid plastic, cage-like contraptions for the built in bra cups. I was mortified.
I had the body image issues frequently endured by 15 year old girls. I wasn’t exactly comfortable in my own skin and now I was going to have to unveil myself with my breasts encased in plastic cages before the entire school.
Had this not been well before omnipresent digital smart phone cameras, I would have seriously contemplated feigning a serious illness. To be honest, I did consider that possibility, but given the free medical care we were receiving from the British National Health Service, I was afraid my parents would actually call an ambulance and have me carted off to the local hospital.
Photo of me on Sports Day, 1970. Yes. I know. It’s faded. 
When it was time for my race on the appointed day, I shrugged off my towel at the pool’s edge and waited in agony for the starter to blow his whistle. I’m sure my frantic desire to be less visible resulted in me being the first to hit the water.
There had been no pre-race warm up (or, rather, cool down) so one could adjust to the water — the unheated water — in an outdoor swimming pool — in England. The shock of the frigid dunking propelled me towards the opposite wall of the pool for the one length race with a burst of adrenalin that would probably be fatal at my current age.
As I crashed into the wall and took a quick look to my right and left, I realized that either my competitors were already out of the water shivering in towels — or miraculously, I had won the race. I spun around to see my classmates floundering towards me, almost in slow motion, poorly executing the front crawl — also know as the American crawl, a stroke I had been perfecting since my first swimming lesson at age five, but which is the last taught to young British swimmers.
It was my Rocky moment. The Eye of the Tiger would have been a fitting soundtrack, but Sylvestor Stallone had yet to triumphantly run up the Art Museum steps in my home town.
The next day found me gratefully back in my severe school uniform, my upper torso encased in a good, solidly frumpy, navy blue English wool jumper (sweater), with a navy blue tie firmly knotted around my neck, holding my shirt collar together, my breasts returned to their normal configuration and obscured at that.
The English have earned their reputation for being reserved and understated. As I entered my school home room, there were no high fives, no fist bumps. (Did anyone even do that in 1970?). No one whispered, “Jolly good show yesterday”, but I felt some quick approving glances. I chose to interpret those as proof that I had earned some Sports Day cred. Thirty four hundred miles and a continent away from home, I might still be a metaphorical fish, but no longer quite so far out of water.